dry months, afford, to one who has always lived in level countries, an unusual and delightful spectacle; but in the rainy season, such as every winter may be expected to bring, must precipitate an impetuous and tremendous flood. I suppose the way by which we went is at this time impassable.

to the traveller; that it is easy to sit at home | road from the hills on the other hand. These and conceive rocks, and heath, and waterfalls; currents, in their diminished state, after several and that these journeys are useless labours, which neither impregnate the imagination, nor enlarge the understanding. It is true, that of far the greater part of things, we must content ourselves with such knowledge as description may exhibit, or analogy supply; but it is true, likewise, that these ideas are always incomplete, and that, at least, till we have compared them with realities, we do not know them to be just. As we see more, we become possessed of more certainties, and consequently gain more principles of reasoning, and found a wider basis of analogy.

existence.

GLENSHEALS.

The lough at last ended in a river broad and shallow like the rest, but that it may be passed when it is deeper, there is a bridge over it. Beyond it is a valley called Glensheals, inhabited by the clan of Macrae. Here we found a village called Auknasheals, consisting of many huts, perhaps twenty, built all of dry-stone, that is,

Regions mountainous and wild, thinly inhabited, and little cultivated, make a great part of the earth, and he that has never seen them, must live unacquainted with much of the face of na-stones piled up without mortar. ture, and with one of the great scenes of human We had, by the direction of the officers at Fort Augustus, taken bread for ourselves, and toAs the day advanced towards noon, we en-bacco for those Highlanders who might show us tered a narrow valley not very flowery, but any kindness. We were now at a place where sufficiently verdant. Our guides told us, that we could obtain milk, but must have wanted the horses could not travel all day without rest bread if we had not brought it. The people of or meat, and entreated us to stop here, because this valley did not appear to know any English, no grass would be found in any other place. and our guides now became doubly necessary as The request was reasonable, and the argument interpreters. A woman, whose hut was distincogent. We therefore willingly dismounted, guished by greater spaciousness and better arand diverted ourselves as the place gave us op-chitecture, brought out some pails of milk. portunity.

The villagers gathered about us in considerable numI sat down on a bank, such as a writer of bers, I believe, without any evil intention, but romance might have delighted to feign. I had, with a very savage wildness of aspect and manindeed, no trees to whisper over my head, but a ner. When our meal was over, Mr. Boswell clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day sliced the bread, and divided it amongst them, was calm, the air was soft, and all was rudeness, as he supposed them never to have tasted a silence, and solitutic. Before me, and on either wheaten loaf before. He then gave them little side, were high hills, which, by hindering the pieces of twisted tobacco, and among the chil eye from ranging, forced the mind to find enter-dren we distributed a small handful of halfpence, tainment for itself. Whether I spent the hour well I know not; for here I first conceived the thought of this narration.

elegance is less. One of the by-standers, as we were told afterwards, advised her to ask more, but she said a shilling was enough. We gave her half-a-crown, and I hope got some credit by our behaviour; for the company said, if cur interpreters did not flatter us, that they had not scen such a day since the old laird of Macleod passed through their country.

which they received with great eagerness. Yet I have been since told, that the people of that valley are not indigent; and when we mentioned We were in this place at ease and by choice, them afterwards as needy and pitiable, a Highand had no evils to suffer or to fear; yet the land lady let us know, that we might spare our imaginations excited by the view of an unknown commiseration; for the dame whose milk we and untravelled wilderness are not such as arise drank, had probably more than a dozen milkin the artificial solitude of parks and gardens, a COWS. She seemed unwilling to take any price, flattering notion of self-sufficiency, a placid in- but being pressed to make a demand, at last dulgence of voluntary delusions, a secure ex-named a shilling. Honesty is not greater, where pansion of the fancy, or a cool concentration of the mental powers. The phantoms which haunt a desert are want, and misery, and danger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted with his own weakness, and meditation shows him only how little he can sustain, and how little he can perform. There were no traces of inhabitants, except perhaps a rude pile of cleds called a summer-hut, in which a herdsman had rested in the favourable seasons. Whoever had been in the place where I then sat, unprovided with provisions, and ignorant of the country, might, at least before the roads were made, have wandered anong the rocks, till he had perished with hardship, before he could have found either food or shelter. Yet what are these hillocks to the ridges of Taurus, or these spots of wilderness to the deserts of America?

It was not long before we were invited to mount, and continued our journey along the side of a lough, kept full by many streams, which with more or less rapidity and noise cr. ssed the

The Macraes, as we heard afterwards in the Hebrides, were originally an indigent and subordinate clan, and having no farms nor stock, were in great numbers servants to the Maclel lans, who, in the war of Charles the First, tock arms at the call of the heroic Montrose, and were, in one of his battles, almost all destroyed. The women that were left at home, being thus deprived of their husbands, like the Scythiar ladies of old, married their servants, and the Macraes became a considerable race.

THE HIGHLANDS.

As we continued our journey, we were al leisure to extend cur speculations, and to inves

tigate the reason of those peculiarities by which [Trent. A tract intersected by many ridges of such rugged regions as these before us are ge-mountains naturally divides its inhabitants into nerally distinguished.

petty nations, which are made, by a thousand causes, enemies to each other. Each will exalt its own chiefs, each will boast the valour of its men, or the beauty of its women, and every claim of superiority irritates competition; inju res will sometimes be done, and be more in

Mountainous countries commonly contain the original, at least the oldest, race of inhabitants, for they are not easily conquered, because they must be entered by narrow ways, exposed to every power of mischief from those that occupy the heights; and every new ridge is a new for-juriously defended; retaliation will sometimes tress, where the defendants have again the same be attempted, and the debt exacted with 100 advantages. If the assailants either force the much interest. strait, or storm the summit, they gain only so much ground; their enemies are fled to take possession of the next rock, and the pursuers stand at gaze, knowing neither where the ways of escape wind among the steeps, nor where the bog has firmness to sustain them: besides that, mountaineers have an agility in climbing and descending, distinct from strength or courage, and attainable only by use.

If the war be not soon concluded, the invaders are dislodged by hunger; for in those anxious and toilsome marches, provisions cannot easily be carried, and are never to be found. The wealth of mountains is cattle, which, while the men stand in the passes the women drive away. Such lands at last cannot repay the expense of conquest, and therefore, perhaps, have not been so often invaded by the mere ambition of dominion, as by resentment of robberies and insults, or the desire of enjoying in security the more fruitful provinces.

As mountaineers are long before they are conquered, they are likewise long before they are civilized. Men are softened by intercourse mutually profitable, and instructed by comparing their own notions with those of others. Thus Cæsar found the maritime parts of Britain made less barbarous by their commerce with the Gauls. Into a barren and rough tract no stranger is brought either by the hope of gain or of pleasure. The inhabitants having neither commodities for sale, nor money for purchase, seldom visit more polished places; or if they do visit them, seldom

icturn.

In the Highlands it was a law, that if a robber was sheltered from justice, any man of the same clan might be taken in his place. This was a kind of irregular justice, which, though necessary in savage times, could hardly fail to end in a feud; and a feud once kindled among an idle people, with no variety of pursuits to divert their thoughts, burnt on for ages, either sullenly glowing in secret mischief, or openly blazing into public violence. Of the effects of this violent judicature, there are not wanting memorials. The cave is now to be seen, to which one of the Campbells, who had injured the Macdonalds, retired with a body of his own clan. The Macdonalds required the off nder, and being refused, made a fire at the mouth of the cave, by which he and his adherents were suffocated together.

Mountaineers are warlike, because by their feuds and competitions they consider themselves as surrounded with enemics, and are always prepared to repel incursions, or to make them. Like the Greeks in their unpolished state, described by Thucydides, the Highlanders, till lately, went always armed, and carried their weapons to visits, and to church.

Mountaineers are thievish, because they are poor, and having neither manufactures nor commerce, can grow richer only by robbery. They regularly plunder their neighbours, for their neighbours are commonly their chemies; and having lost that reverence for property by which the order of civil life is preserved, soon consider all as enemies whom they do not reckon as

whatever they are not obliged to protect.

It sometimes happens that by conquest, inter-friends, and think themselves licensed to invade mixture or gradual refinement, the cultivated parts of a country change their language. The By a strict administration of the laws, since momtaineers then become a distinct nation, cu: the laws have been introduced into the High off by dissimilitude of speech from conversation lands, this disposition to thievery is very much with their neighbours. Thus in Biscay, the repressed. Thirty years ago no herd had ever original Cantabrian, and in Dalecarlia, the old been conducted through the mountains without Swedish, still subsists. Thus Wales and the paying tribute in the night to some of the claus; Highlands speak the tongue of the first inhab-but cattle are now driven, and passengers trav.i, tants of Britain, while the other parts have re-without danger, fear, or molestatioa. ceived fist the Saxon, and in some degree after- Among a warlike people, the quality of highwards the French, and then formed a third lan-est esteem is personal courage, and with the guage between them. ostentatious display of courage are closely conThat the primitive manners are continued nected promptitude of offence, and quickness of where the primitive language is spoken, no na-resentment. The Highlanders, before they tion will desire me to suppose, for the manners of mountaineers are commonly savage, but they are rather produced by their situation than derived from their ancestors.

Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a d stinction produces rivalry. England, before other causes of enmity were found, was disturbed for some centuries by the contests of the northern and southern counties; so that at Oxford the peace of study could for a long time be preserved only by chooing an nually one of the proctors from each side of the

were disarmed, were so addicted to quarrels, that the boys used to follow any public procession or ceremony, however festive or how ever solemn, in expectation of the battle, which was sure to happen before the company dis persed.

Mountainous regions are sometimes so remote from the seat of government, and so ditlicult of access, that they are very little under the ifluence of the sovereign, he within the reach of national justice. Law is nothing withour power; jand the sintence of a distant coaut could not be

easily executed, nor perhaps very safely promulgated, among men, ignorantly proud and habitu ally violent, unconnected with the general system, and accustomed to reverence only their own lords. It has therefore been necessary to erect many particular jurisdictions, and commit the punishment of crimes, and the decision of, right, to the prop ictors of the country who could enforce their own decrees. It immediately appears that such judges will be often ignorant, and often partial; but in the immaturity of political establishments no better expedient could be found. As government advances towards perfection, provincial judicature is perhaps in every empire gradually abolished.

Those who had thus the dispensation of law, were by consequence themselves lawless. Their vassals had no shelter from outrages and oppressions; but were condemned to endure without resistance, the caprices of wantonness and the rage of cruelty.

In the Highlands, some great lords had an hereditary jurisdiction over counties; and some chieftains over their own lands; till the final conquest of the Highlands afforded an opportunity of crushing all the local courts, and of extending the general benefits of equal law to the low and the high in the deepest recesses, and

obscurest corners.

will preserve local stories and hereditary prejudices. Thus every Highlander can talk of his ancestors, and recount the out ages which they suffered from the wicked inhabitants of the next valley.

Such are the effects of habitation among mountains, and such were the qualities of the Highlanders, while their rocks secluded them from the rest of mankind, and kept them an unaltered and discriminated race. They are now losing their distinction, and hastening to mingle with the general community.

GLENELG.

We left Auknasheals and the Macraes in the

afternoon, and in the evening came to Ratiken, a high hill on which a road is cut, but so steep and narrow that it is very difficult. There is now a design of making another way round the bottom. Upon one of the precipices, my horse, weary with the steepness of the rise, staggered a little, and I called in haste to the High ander to hold him. This was the only moment of my journey in which I thought myself endangered.

Having surmounted the hill at last, we were told, that at Glenelg, on the seaside, we should come to a house of lime and slate and glass. This image of magnificence raised our expectation. At last we came to our inn, weary and peevish, and began to inquire for meat and beds.

While the chiefs had this resemblance of royalty, they had little inclination to appeal, on Of the provisions the negative catalogue was any question, to superior judicatures. A claim very copious. Here was no meat, no milk, no of lands between two powerful lairds was de- bread, no eggs, no wine. We did not express cided like a contest for dominion between sove- much satisfaction. Here, however, we were to reign powers. They drew their forces into stay. Whiskey we might have, and I believe at the field, and right attended on the strongest. last they caught a fowl and killed it. We had This was in ruder times the common practice, some bread, and with that we prepared ourselves which the kings ofcotland could seldom control. to be contented, when we had a very eminent Even so lately as in the last years of king proof of Highland hospitality. Along some William a battle was fought at Mull Roy, on a miles of the way, in the evening, a gentleman's plain a few miles to the south of Inverness, be- servant had kept us company on foot with very tween the clans of Mackintosh and Macdonald little notice on our part. He left us near of Keppoch. Colonel Macdonald, the head of Glenelg, and we thought on him no more till he a small clan, refused to pay the dues demanded came to us again in about two hours, with a from him by Mackintosh, as his superior lord. present from his master of rum and sugar. The They disdained the interposition of judges and man had mentioned his company, and the genlaws, and calling cach his followers to maintain teman, whose name I think is Gordon, well the dignity of the clan, fought a formal battle, knowing the penury of the place, had this attenin which several considerable men fell on the tion to two men, whose names perhaps he had side of Mackintosh, without a complete victory not heard, by whom his kindness was not likely to either. This is said to have been the last to be ever repaid, and who could be recommendopen war made between the clans by their owned to him only by their necessities. authority.

The Highland lords made treaties, and formed alliances, of which some traces may still be finn, and some consequences still remain as lasting evidences of petty legality. The terms of one of these confederacies, were, that each should support the other in the right, or in the wrong, except against the king.

The inhabitants of mountains form distinct races, and are careful to prese:ve their genealogies. Men in a small district necessarily mingled blood by intermarriages, and combine at last into one family, with a common interest in the honour and disgrace of every individual. Then begins that union of affections, and cooperation of endeavours, that constitute a clan. They who consider themselves as ennobled by their family, will think highly of their progenitors; and they who through successive gencrations live always together in the same place,

We were now to examine our lodging. Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose, started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge. Other circumstances of no elegant recital concurred to disgust us. We had been fighted by a lady at Fdinburgh, with discouraging representations of Highland lodgings. Sleep, however, was necessary. Cur Highlanders had at last found some hay, with which the inn could not supply them. I directed them to bring a bundle into the room, and slept upon it in my riding coat. Mr. Boswell being more delicate, laid himself sheets, with hay over and under him, and lay in linen like a gentle.

future travellers, and were ferried over to the isle of Sky. We landed at Arinidel, where we were met on the sands by Sir Alexander Macdonald, who was at that time there with his lady, preparing to leave the island and reside at Edinburgh.

Armidel is a neat house, built where the Macdonalds had once a seat, which was burnt in the commotions that followed the Revolution. The walled orchard, which belonged to the former house, still remains. It is well shaded by tall ash-trees, of a species, as Mr. James the fossilist informed me, uncommonly valuable. This plantation is very properly mentioned by Dr. Campbell, in his new account of the state of B itain, and deserves attention; because it proves that the present nakedness of the Hebrides is not wholly the fault of nature.

true, and that, in some places, men may buy them, and in others make them for themselves; but I had both the accounts in the same house within two days.

Many of my subsequent inquiries upon more interesting topics ended in the like uncertainty. He that travels in the Highlands may easily saturate his soul with intelligence, if he will ac quiesce in the first account. The Highlander gives to every question an answer so prompt and peremptory, that skepticism itself is dared into silence, and the mind sinks before the bold reporter in unresisting credulity; but if a second question be ventured, it breaks the enchantment; for it is immediately discovered, that what was told so confidently was told at hazard, and that such fearlessness of assertion was either the sport of negligence, or the refuge of ignorance.

As we sat at Sir Alexander's table, we were entertained, according to the ancient usage of If individuals are thus at variance with themthe north, with the melody of the bagpipe.selves, it can be no wonder that the accounts of Every thing in those countries has its history. different men are contradictory. The traditions As the bagpiper was playing, an elderly gentle- of an ignorant and savage people have been for man informed us, that in some remote time, the ages negligently heard, and unskilfully related. Macdonalds of Glengary having been injured, Distant events must have been mingled together, or offended, by the inhabitants of Culloden, and and the actions of one man given to another. resolving to have justice or vengeance, came to These, however, are deficiencies in story, for Culloden on a Sunday, where, finding their ene- which no man is now to be censured. It were mies at worship, they shut them up in the church, enough, if what there is yet opportunity of exawhich they set on fire: and this, said he, is the mining were accurately inspected and justly retune which the piper played while they were presented; but such is the laxity of Highland burning. conversation, that the inquirer is kept in contiNarrations like this, however uncertain, de-nual suspense, and, by a kind of intellectual reserve the notice of a traveller, because they are trogradation, knows less as he hears more. the only records of a nation that has no histo- In the islands the plaid is rarely worn. The rians, and afford the most genuine representa-law by which the Highlanders have been obliged tion of the life and character of the ancient Highlanders.

Under the denomination of Highlander, are comprehended in Scotland all that now speak the Erse language, or retain the primitive manners, whether they live among the mountains or in the islands; and in that sense I use the name, when there is not some apparent reason for making a distinction.

to change the form of their dress, has, in all the places that we have visited, been universally obeyed. I have seen only one gentleman completely clothed in the ancient habit, and by him it was worn only occasionally and wantonly. The common people do not think themselves under any legal necessity of having coats; for they say that the law against plaids was made by Lord Hardwicke, and was in force only for his life: but the same poverty that made it then difficult for them to change their clothing, hinders them now from changing it again.

In Sky I first observed the use of brogues, a kind of artless shoes, stitched with thongs so loosely, that though they defend the foot from stones, they do not exclude water. Brogues The fillibog, or lower garment, is still very were formerly made of raw hides, with the hair common, and the bonnet almost universal; but inwards, and such are perhaps still used in rude their attire is such as produces, in a sufficient and remote parts: but they are said not to last degree, the effect intended by the law, of abolish above two days. Where life is somewhat im-ing the dissimilitude of appearance between the proved, they are now made of leather tanned with oak-bark, as in other places, or with the bark of birch, or roots of tormentil, a substance recommended in defect of bark, about forty years ago, to the Irish tanners, by one to whom the parliament of that kingdom voted a reward. The leathe of Sky is not completely penetrated by vegetable matter, and therefore cannot be very durable.

My inquiries about brogues gave me an early specimen of Highland information. One day I was told, that to make brogues was a domestic art, which every man practised for himself, and that a pair of brogues was the work of an hour. I supposed that the husband made brogues as the wife made an apron, till next day it was told me, that a brogue-miker was a trade, and that a pair would cost half-a-crown. It will easily occur that these representations may both be

Highlanders and the other inhabitants of Britain; and, if dress be supposed to have much influence, facilitates their coalition with their fellow-subjects.

What we have long used, we naturally like; and therefore the Highlanders were unwilling to lay aside their plaid, which yet to an unprejudiced spectator must appear an incommodious and cumbersome dress; for hanging loose upon the body, it must flutter in a quick motion, or require one of the hands to keep it close. The Romans always laid aside the gown when they had any thing to do. It was a dress so unsuit able to war, that the same word which signified a gown, signified peace. The chief use of a plaid seems to be this, that they could commodiously wrap themselves in it when they were obliged to sleep without a better cover.

In our passage from Scotland to Sky, we were

wet for the first time with a shower. This was there is a cairn upon it. A cairn is a heap of the beginning of the Highland winter, after stones thrown upon the grave of one eminent for which we were told that a succession of three dignity of birth, or splendour of achievements. dry days was not to be expected for many It is said, that by digging, an urn is always found months. The winter of the Hebrides consists of under these cairns; they must therefore have little more than rain and wind. As they are sur- been thus piled by a people whose custom was rounded by an ocean never frozen, the blasts that to burn the dead. To pile stones is, I believe, a come to them over the water, are too much soft-northern custom, and to burn the body was the ened to have the power of congelation. The salt loughs, or inlets of the sea, which shoot very far into the island, never have any ice upon them, and the pools of fresh water will never bear the walker. The snow that sometimes falls, is soon dissolved by the air, or the rain.

This is not the description of a cruel climate, yet the dark months are here a time of great distress; because the summer can do little more than feed itself, and winter comes with its cold and its scarcity upon families very slenderly provided.

CORIATACHAN IN SKY.

The third or fourth day after our arrival at Armidel, brought us an invitation to the isle of Raasay, which lies east of Sky. It is incredible how soon the account of any event is propagated in these narrow countries by the love of talk, which much leisure produces, and the relief given to the mind in the penury of insular conversation by a new topic. The arrival of strangers at a place so rarely visited, excites rumour, and quickens curiosity. I know not whether we touched at any corner, where fame had not already prepared us a reception.

Roman practice; nor do I know when it was that these two acts of sepulture were united.

The weather was next day too violent for the continuation of our journey; but we had no rea son to complam of the interruption. We saw in every place, what we chiefly desired to know, the manners of the people. We had company, and if we had chosen retirement, we might have had books.

I never was in any house of the islands where I did not find books in more languages than one, if I stayed long enough to want them, except one from which the family was removed. Literature is not neglected by the higher rank of the Hebridians.

It need not, I suppose, be mentioned, that in countries so little frequented as the islands, there are no houses where travellers are entertained for money. He that wanders about these wilds, either procures recommendations to those whose habitations lie near his way, or when night and weariness come upon him, takes the chance of general hospitality. If he finds only a cottage, he can expect little more than shelter; for the cottagers have little more for themselves; but if his good fortune brings him to the residence of a gentleman, he will be glad of a storm to prolong his stay. There is, however, one inn by the seaside at Sconsor, in Sky, where the post-office is kept.

To gain a commodious passage to Raasay, it was necessary to pass over a large part of Sky. We were furnished therefore with horses and a guide. In the islands there are no roads, nor any marks by which a stranger may find his way. At the tables where a stranger is received, The horseman has always at his side a native of neither plenty nor delicacy is wanting. A tract the place, who, by pursuing game, or tending of land so thinly inhabited must have much wild cattle, or being often employed in messages or fowl; and I scarcely remember to have seen a conduct, has learned where the ridge of the hill dinner without them. The moorgame is every has breadth sufficient to allow a horse and his where to be had. That the sea abounds with rider a passage, and where the moss or bog is fish, needs not to be told, for it supplies a great hard enough to bear them. The bogs are avoided part of Europe. The isle of Sky has stags and as toilsome at least, if not unsafe, and therefore roebucks, but no hares. They send very numethe journey is made generally from precipice torous droves of oxen yearly to England, and thereprecipice; from which if the eye ventures to look down, it sees below a gloomy cavity, whence the rush of water is sometimes heard.

But there seems to be in all this more alarm than danger. The Highlander walks carefully before, and the horse accustomed to the ground, follows him with little deviation. Sometimes the hill is too steep for the horseman to keep his seat, and sometimes the moss is too tremulous to bear the double weight of horse and man. The rider then dismounts, and all shift as they can.

fore cannot be supposed to want beef at home. Sheep and goats are in great numbers, and they have the common domestic fowls.

But as here is nothing to be bought, every family must kill its own meat, and roast part of it somewhat sooner than Apicius would prescribe. Every kind of flesh is undoubtedly excelled by the variety and emulation of English markets; but that which is not best may be yet very far from bad, and he that shall complain of his fare in the Hebrides, has improved his deli

Journeys made in this manner are rather tedi-cacy more than his manhood. ous than long. A very few miles require several Their fowls are not like those plumped for sale hours. From Armidel we came at night to Coria- by the poulterers of London, but they are as good tachan, a house very pleasantly situated between as other places commonly afford, except that the two brooks, with one of the highest hills of the geese, by feeding in the sea, have universally a island behind it. It is the residence of Mr. Mac-fishy rankness. kinnon, by whom we were treated with very liberal hospitality, among a more numerous and elegant company than it could have been supposed easy to collect.

The hill behind the house we did not climb. The weather was rough, and the height and steepness discouraged us. We were told that

These geese seem to be of a middle race, between the wild and domestic kinds. They are so tame as to own a home, and so wild as sometimes to fly quite away.

Their native bread is made of cats, or barley. Of oatmeal they spread es, coarse are not (and hard, to which une